UConn Men's Insider: AAC's Aresco In Town Talking Present, Future

UConn's Pat Lenehan accepts the American Athletic Conference Scholar Athlete of the Year Award from commissioner Mike Aresco at their awards ceremony at the Coliseum Club at the XL Center Thursday.

UConn's Pat Lenehan accepts the American Athletic Conference Scholar Athlete of the Year Award from commissioner Mike Aresco at their awards ceremony at the Coliseum Club at the XL Center Thursday. (Cloe Poisson)

HARTFORD — Major events are a good time for a commissioner to make a state of the league address. With the American Athletic Conference men's basketball tournament at the XL Center, commissioner Mike Aresco talked with The Courant for about 15 minutes Thursday, discussing the present and future of the conference.

The theme was the need for AAC basketball teams to continue upgrading nonconference schedules, to make their games more RPI-friendly for NCAA Tournament purposes, and to add value to the league's TV package. It's possible there will be a challenge series with another league soon, similar to the old Big East/ACC Challenge series.

Army and UMass have been mentioned as candidates to join the league. There is no expansion on the horizon, and Aresco said the league is not actively looking for more teams. The AAC will be looking for a new TV deal within the next couple of years, which, if it significantly increases revenue, could make expansion more viable.

Here are some highlights:

"Last year was a big year for us," Aresco said. "We had Louisville in the conference, and that was a bonus. This year was a real promising year, and it was not a good start, a rough start, players not eligible. It was not as good a nonconference showing as we would have liked. But we upgraded our schedules significantly, and in that are the seeds for future success.

The last time UConn's league rivals gathered in Hartford was 1982, the Big East was in its growing stage and UConn basketball...

HARTFORD — The good news for UConn is that the Huskies are hosting their conference tournament for the first time since 1982. And in many ways, that is also the bad news.

The last time UConn's league rivals gathered in Hartford was 1982, the Big East was in its growing stage and UConn basketball...

(DOM AMORE)

"SMU was penalized by the [NCAA] committee last year. This year, they played Gonzaga, Indiana, Michigan, Arkansas — they played a lot of good teams. We got better as the season went on. There were some writers who were talking about a 'one-bid league.' Now it looks like we have four legit teams, a couple securely in, a couple on the bubble."

Regarding TV

"TV is part of our strategy. We have to be at the cutting edge. We've got to be playing those other five [power] conferences, and in basketball, the other strong basketball conferences. ESPN wants us to play those games, because it adds value. We played the best of the best.

"ESPN will look at us and say, this league can deliver real value. Their ratings are good. We fill some valuable time slots in football and basketball. The goal in the long term is to make sure, in the public's mind and the media's mind, that we're viewed like those other five. We want to be viewed as the closest conference to them, and eventually we'll knock that door down."

"I'd say we're satisfied with attendance," Aresco said, just before the start of the UConn-Tulsa semifinal Saturday, when it looked as if about 12,000 were in the stands. "We knew if UConn advanced, it would be good. … We calibrated [prices] very carefully. We priced them lower than last year at Memphis, and much lower than at the Garden for the old Big East and the ACC tournament. There will always be people who say it's too expensive, but we'll certainly examine it every year."

The AAC offered several ways for fans to sell back their tickets if their teams were eliminated, so as the Huskies advanced, Aresco says, there were possibilities of getting those tickets available for local fans.

Geography

The AAC is situated in major markets, as the original Big East was. Aresco said this should lift its stature.

"What happened at SMU is remarkable," Aresco said. "They've sold out every game. … Somebody once said, 'It's not so much the market you're in, it's the market you deliver.' You have to be in the market, and then the question is delivering the market. SMU, Houston will deliver that market — there's a tradition there.

"I grew up in Connecticut, and I tell people, UConn was just like Indiana. People loved the Huskies even when it was just a good regional program. That's going to happen in our markets. You'll see Tampa embrace the Bulls. You'll see Orlando embrace basketball the way they embraced football when [UCF] won the Fiesta Bowl. They had a parade at Disney. Tulsa has a great tradition.

"A lot of people have moved to the Sun Belt the last 30 years. A lot of places where basketball hasn't been as big, population has shifted there. … There's tremendous potential in those markets, and that's why you have to keep an eye on this conference."

Looking Ahead

What's coming next year, and in the near future?

"We're going to go to Orlando for a couple of years with the tournament. That will be a destination kind of place. We're looking to upgrade our basketball schedules, our RPI, and we're looking for some potential challenges, league challenges like the old ACC-Big East. We're geographically diverse, so it's a little tougher to put that kind of thing together, but [associate commissioner for men's basketball] Dan Leibovitz does a great job, and he's working on that now. He's working really hard on RPI, making sure schools schedule properly. We're telling the schools coming in, 'You're upgrading. You're going to be going into a league that's tough. You've got to play a tougher nonconference schedule. It helps everybody.' We want our conference wins to count just as much as the nonconference wins.

"A lot of it is staying the course. Building facilities — Houston has a $25 million practice facility going up. ... We can't do much about it, but we know that over time rivalries will develop. UConn's developed a nice one with Memphis, and SMU already had one with Cincinnati. Memphis-UConn has become pretty darn good.

"We have to be good — more than other conferences. Some conferences, I won't name them, have had mediocre success over the last 10 years, but they are who they are. We are a new brand, and if we have success, those games will mean more. You develop it by being good on the national level."

Making The Pitch

One off-the-basketball topic, with spring coming, the AAC has only eight schools that play baseball, but three of them, Houston, Central Florida and Tulane, have been ranked this season. UConn, South Florida and East Carolina have had success. Baseball does matter in most of the major conferences; perhaps it could become a trademark of the AAC.

"We have really good baseball," Aresco said. "I've been to East Carolina, and their stadium is better than a lot of minor league parks. I've been to Tulane and seen their beautiful stadium. Houston almost went to the College World Series. UCF is really good. Why shouldn't the Florida schools be good? And UConn has a long tradition of great baseball. You go to the College World Series, you get a lot of attention. It's a neat event. I'm hoping we're going to be one of the best baseball conferences."

Read a season's worth of UConn Men's Insiders at http://www.courant.com/ucminsider